The Odorare Circle

Rose in perfumery: Grasse, Turkey, Taif

The rose that scents a perfume bottle is almost never the flower from the garden: it is a raw material derived from two specific species, harvested in three regions of the world, and processed usin...

Musk in perfumery: from animal to molecule

The musk we smell in perfumes today is no longer animal at all: it comes from a laboratory. This article traces how a secretion from a deer, hunted until it was banned, was replaced by synthetic mo...

Ambergris: What It Really Is

Ambergris, the amber of "oriental" fragrances, and ambroxan refer to three completely different things, yet perfumery terminology has confused them for decades. This article distinguishes between t...

Iris: the most expensive ingredient in perfumery

Iris is not a flower but a rhizome, and this detail explains its price: it takes several years of drying before a butter with an extremely low yield can be extracted from it. This article details t...